JPTS XXVI (2000)

160 Jacqueline Filliozat

Yamaka VAT-IND 43 (Burmese script), VAT-IND 52 (Kham script)
Latukikajataka BORG-IND 49 (Burmese script, 18th c.)

Vibhanga VAT-JND 52 (Kham script)

Viharakammavaca VAT-IND 44 (Burmese script)
Visuddhajanavilasini = Apadanatthakatha

Saccayamaka VAT-IND 43 (Burmese script)
Simasammutikammavaca VAT-IND 44 (Burmese script)
Suttanipata VAT-IND 53 (Sinhalese script)

Book Review

Catalogue of the Burmese-Pali and Burmese Manuscripts in the Library
of The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. Prepared by
William Pruitt and Roger Bischoff. pp. 11, 187. Coloured frontispiece,
28 b&w and 31 colour plates. The Wellcome Trust, London. 1998.

The library of the Wellcome Institute possesses a fine collection of
Burmese-Pali and Burmese manuscripts, mostly purchased at auctions
in London before the death of Sir Henry S. Wellcome in 1936. A few
manuscripts touching on medicine have been added since then.

The Burmese-Pali manuscripts were first catalogued by Jacqueline
Filliozat in an earlier number of this Journal (JPTS XIX, 1993, pp. I-
41), but that catalogue left many problems unsolved, and it is no longer
an adequate guide to the collection (it lists, for example, only 93
manuscripts), although the references which it gives to the category-
numbers of texts listed in the Bibliography of A Critical Pali Dictionary
are not included in this new catalogue, and are still valuable, as are the
comments about the identity of some texts, e.g. “No. 34 Gambhiyattha-
desana’’. In this new catalogue a number of changes and corrections
have been made to the earlier catalogue. The leaves of the manuscripts
have all been put in correct order. A few texts had leaves scattered
through different manuscripts, and these have now all been reunited.
Many identifications of manuscripts have been added to or changed.

The catalogue of the Burmese-Pali collection, which amounts to
121 manuscripts, has been made by William Pruitt, who has already
published a catalogue and additions to the catalogue of Burmese
manuscripts in the Library of Congress in earlier numbers of this
Journal (JPTS XIII, 1989, pp. 1-31; XXIV, 1998, pp. 171-83). There
are 27 Burmese manuscripts. They are catalogued by Roger Bischoff.

Almost half (55) of the Burmese-Pali manuscripts contain
kammavacas “verbal acts”, the texts which were used for formal acts of
the Sangha, e.g. the ordination of a monk. These individual acts are
identified for each manuscript. Besides the Kammavacas, other

162 K.R. Norman

manuscripts contain Pali canonical texts, commentaries, extra-
canonical, and grammar texts. Many of the texts are incomplete. Many
of the manuscripts are, or include, Pali-Burmese nissayas.

The titles of texts or sections of texts as listed in the margins of the
manuscripts are given, and also descriptions of the wrappers or covers
(some of which are very ornate), the script, and any information given
in the manuscripts about dates, authors, or copyists. Details about the
re-arrangement of leaves are also given. Occasionally information is
given about the publication of the texts contained in the manuscripts,
e.g. “No. 54 the Burmese nissaya Vinayasara’’, or about their presence
in other collections.

Where numbers of nipatas, etc., are given, then it is not difficult for
those seeking manuscripts to find relevant page numbers in PTS
editions. Descriptions such as “incomplete”, e.g. for “No. 90 Yamaka”,
are less helpful, and could usefully have been augmented by saying
which pages of the PTS editions are present or missing.

The author has not followed the usual practice of quoting the
beginning and end of each text. Although this might be thought to be
unnecessary in the case of texts which have been identified, it might
have been helpful in the case of manuscripts which are unidentified, e.g.
“No. 105 unidentified Abhidhamma text”.

The Burmese Buddhist manuscripts include a history of Buddhism,
texts on Abhidhamma, texts on monks’ discipline, biographies of the
Buddha’s disciples, and records of monastic courts. There is also a
manuscript of Malalankaravatthu — a Burmese prose work. Those with
secular subjects include: decisions on secular law; horoscopes; two
royal edicts in cases; manuscripts on medicine (including a collection
of medical recipes), astrology and magic; an incomplete life of the
Buddha in three volumes; and a schoolbook that probably belonged to a
prince. A wooden tablet describes a scene from the Vanarinda Jataka,
and is probably a gloss to an illustration.

To the catalogue is prefixed an Introduction giving a brief survey of
the collection, and transliteration tables of the three Burmese scripts

Book Review 163

used in the manuscripts. Two are early: (1) Tamarind-seed script
written in black lacquer; (2) square Burmese script written in black
lacquer or engraved with a stylus on palm lead manuscripts. One is
modern: (3) round Burmese script. Added to the catalogue is an Index
of the fourteen Kammavaca texts which are found in total in the
manuscripts, with their distribution among individual manuscripts.

There are also indexes of: IH. Works; III. Authors; IV. Place
names; V. Donors, owners and copyists; VI. Place of the works in
canon and commentaries. There is also a List of Abbreviations.

The catalogue concludes with black and white plates and colour
plates giving examples of the decoration often found on the first and last
folios of manuscripts. One manuscript has leaves made from stiffened
portions of silk robes belonging to King Mindon (reigned 1852-77).
Another (the Burmese one mentioned above) contains three manuscripts
of folded thick paper bound in leather and painted with scenes from
Gotama Buddha’s career.

The whole work is meticulously presented. Surprisingly, the
misspelling (twice) of Niddesa on p. 121 has escaped the notice of the,
proofreaders.

In as much as the purpose of the Pali Text Society, as set out by the
founder of the Society, is “to edit in Pali, and if possible to translate into
English, such Pali books as still exist in manuscripts preserved in
Europe or Asia, in order to render accessible to students the rich stores
of the earliest Buddhist literature which are lying unedited and
practically unused”, it is not surprising that many of the early volumes
of the Society’s Journal contained lists of such manuscripts in libraries
around the world.

The JPTS has continued to do this and, beside those by William
Pruitt and Jacqueline Filliozat mentioned above, recent volumes have
included lists of Pali manuscripts of Sri Lanka in the Cambridge
University Library by Jinadasa Liyanaratne (XVIII, pp. 131-47), and
three further lists by Jacqueline Filliozat: commentaries to the Anagata-
vamsa in the Pali manuscripts of the Paris collections (XIX, pp. 43-63);

164 K.R. Norman

Pali manuscripts in Burmese and Siamese characters in the library of
Vijayasundaramaya Asgiriya (XXI, pp. 135-91); and Pali manuscripts
from the Bodleian Library (XXIV, pp. I-80).

Nevertheless lists, while of great value, are not sufficient in
themselves, and it has been very gratifying to see the catalogues of Pali
manuscripts which have appeared in recent years, sometimes from
sources where Western scholars, at least, might be forgiven for not
knowing there were Pali manuscripts, e.g. the Catalogue of the Otani
Library palm leaf manuscripts (rev. K.R. Norman, Buddhist Studies
Review 14, I, 1997, pp. 63-64; Primoz Pecenko, Indo-Iranian Journal
AI, 3, July 1998, pp. 301-304). It is to be hoped that such catalogues
will continue to appear giving, perhaps, information about texts hitherto
unknown or known only by name. Of particular importance will be
information about the store of manuscripts at present being amassed in
the Fragile Leaves Project in Bangkok. It may not be too much to hope
to see, one day, a Catalogus Catalogorum of Pali texts. Daunting though
this task may be, using modern technology it should not be impossible
to produce a computer file listing the names of all the Pali texts at
present known to us with information about the libraries and holdings
where manuscripts of such texts are known to exist.

K.R. Norman

Index of Grammatical Points Discussed
in the Notes to Elders’ Verses I

A number of readers of Volume I of Elders’ Verses have regretted

that I did not provide an index of the grammatical points which I

discussed in the notes, as I did for the later Volume II. Since I have

made one for my own use, it may be useful to make it more widely

available.

abbreviated compounds 640

abhi-/ati-/adhi- 118

ablative in -am 788

absolutives; in -2 1144; with -m
1242; in -am (see namul); in
-ttd 1263

acc-lajjh- 663

accusative plural neuter in -am 2

accusative feminine singular in
-lyam 529

action nouns, past participles as
36

adhi-lati-labhi- 118

-G + iva 118

-am < -Gin 83

-am < -Gni 2

-a-n- 564

-dni, masculine nominative plural
in §28

aorist/future in s/ss 78

drva gana~~~ 386

-as stems 1078

-dse, nominative plural in 102

ASokan forms 47, 49, 528, 558,
640, 742, 823, 879, 975, 1100,
1196

-assal-assi 239

ati-ladhi-/abhi- 118

-al-u 10

Aupacchandasaka: even
pada for odd 416

-Gya > -G 187

bhi g 164
bhlh 613
bracchylogy 43

cadence (sloka):

i]

sy 279

~wwe =

420

«444
CC/NC 77
cldh 237
clv 15
change of gender 528
cognate accusatives 560
compounds, abbreviated 640; split

42; tautological 1035